Forget what you know about video games based on movies for just a minute. Now imagine a movie that you loved (or in this case a trilogy). Wouldn’t it be great to continue that experience in game form; to relive those awesome moments with you controlling the action. I believe that was always the intent with movie games but it almost never seems to work out. Perhaps game developers should take a look back on some PS2 era games because The Matrix: Path of Neo is a great game.

Somebody’s got a case of the Mondays.

The story aspect of Path of Neo literally takes you through the three Matrix movies. Between playable sections the plot unravels through an interesting recut of the movies. This recut was done by the Wachowski Brothers themselves, as directors of the movies it makes perfect sense that they direct the game. Live action scenes from the films are shown but cut into rapid bits, they rather leave you with a vague sense of where in the movie you are. I’m not sure it was possible to fit the full movies on a PS2 disc anyway.

Get used to seeing Agent Smith…

The Matrix movies started coming out back in 1999. So this was actually a trip down memory lane. It was really great to play through some of the more memorable scenes such as escaping from the office, recusing Morpheus from the Smiths and getting my eyes burned out. There is virtually no learning curve here, Path of Neo is a button masher. The big difference between Path of Neo and other mashers is the ability to “focus” and slow down the action, well…slow down the action for everyone else. You could guess why that would be helpful.

The controls can be a little wonky, your character Neo sometimes looks like he’s having a seizure. At the same time they are pretty awesome, every button combo you try results in a new move being pulled off. With aspects of RPG games infiltrating most new games it’s nice to play through a game that is just pure action. Just fight get stronger and keep fighting.

…there will be plenty of opportunity to fight him

I highly recommend The Matrix: Path of Neo it easily joins the Gamedae Favorites list.